DON’T MAKE COMPARISONS.

Don’t make comparisons: the living are incomparable.
I had come to terms with the flatness of the plains
with a sort of fond fear.
The curve of the sky was a disease to me.
I would turn and wait for some service or news
from my servant the air.
I would get ready for a journey
and sail along the arcs of travel that never began.
I am prepared to wander where there is more sky for me,
but the clear anguish will not let me go
away from the youthful hills of Voronezh
to the civilised hills, that I see so clearly in Tuscany.
—Osip Mandelstam, 18 January 1937
tr. Richard McKane and Elizabeth McKane
(from The Voronezh Notebooks: Poems 1935-1937)

Comments

I’ve been looking for a good Mandelstam translation for awhile. This is the best I’ve seen.
Scattered glimpses have convinced me that he’s one of the best poets of the century, along with Rilke and two or three others, but I’ll never learn Russian and he’s apparently hard to translate.

He is hard to translate (I’ve made attempts, some more successful than others), and I think this (along with The Moscow Notebooks, same publisher) is the best available version. It also has excellent notes.

LH, how can you call it a good translation?
It’s at best word-to-word (and not always).
M. is a poet whose magic comes not from words by itself. He communicates that ‘different plane’ extra through music of the verse.
In this translation there is nothing left of his music. Not even his rhythm, let alone rhymes.
Look at this, f.ex. – “тоска меня ….в Тоскане” – you suddenly can’t breath when you read it. Anguish doesn’t come close. “Clear anguish” in English doesn’t imply choice of words, poet’s work, his language genius. “Clear” just sounds like a chance filler.
In original word “яснеющим” there is a sense of receding dusk, or rather fog – in connection with “холмов” it is enough to describe hilly landscape of the dreamed, faraway magnet country.
When he uses same word in “ясная тоска”, it means his situation is clear to him and he’s helpless to change it – just in those two words. True, close to Pushkin’s “светлая тоска” – but there is no hope in M.
All that – and more- is lost.
The article you link, though, is excellent, especially the last example. I, too, as many-many others, had caught myself thinking Pushkin’s thoughts – not necessarily in his terms or in verse. It is in our blood.

LH, how can you call it a good translation?
I didn’t — I called it “the best available version.” Just think what the others are like! I agree with everything you say, but the fact is that something of M’s greatness comes across (as can be seen from John’s reaction), so I recommend it faute de mieux. And it does have good notes.
Glad you liked the article!

To support Tatyana, here is an article (in Russian, so I skip the details as it’s probably of no interest for other):http://www.vavilon.ru/metatext/mj53/campbell.html
But his example speaks for itself.
Poem by E.Rein “Monastery”
За станцией “Сокольники”, где магазин мясной
И кладбище раскольников, был монастырь мужской.
Руина и твердыня, развалина, гнилье –
В двадцатые пустили строенье под жилье.
Такую коммуналку теперь уж не сыскать.
Зачем я переехал, не стану объяснять.
Я, загнанный, опальный, у жизни на краю
Сменял там отпевальню на комнату свою…
Translation n 1.
Beyond Sokolniki Station, where there’s a meat store
And the Old Believers’ cemetery, there was a monastery.
A ruin and a sea of mud, wreckage, disintegration:
In the twenties they set to turning into a dwelling.
There’s no other communal house like it today.
Why I did it, I’ll not explain. I, worn-out, scandal-ridden,
Bum and lout, exchanged Leningrad for a monastery cell.
Translation N 2.
Behind Sokolniki Station, by the raskolniki cemetery
And a butcher’s shop, stood the remodeled monastery.
It was a folly and a fortress, a shambles and a dive –
They made the building “co-op” in nineteen twenty-five.
Communal pads like that one doesn’t find these days,
And why I ended up there I won’t begin to say.
Harassed and out-of-favor, I was living on the edge,
And so I tossed my pillow on some old friar’s ledge.

The first translation was published, and the second was made by the author (when he was a student) in his free time for fun. I used to think that poetry can’t be translated anyway, so what’s the difference… But I enjoy I. Brodsky’s poems in translation as much as in Russian, and the above translation (n 2) is very good also. I don’t think it’s impossible to adequately translate Mandelstam — something will probably be lost, but not everything!

On some level, I guess I don’t care. I don’t read Russian and yet I have been astounded by Mandelstam’s work, which has only been available to me in what everyone says are inadequate translations. So until LH gets busy and publishes some of his own, I have to be grateful for what exists.

Well, let’s put it in perspective — he comes off a lot better in translation than poor Pushkin. It’s not so much that he doesn’t sound like a great poet (it would be hard to cover that up!) as that the specifics of his style are lost.

And you can support my book habit without even spending money on me by following my Amazon links to do your shopping (if, of course, you like shopping on Amazon); I get a small percentage of every dollar spent while someone is following my referral links, and every month I get a gift certificate that allows me to buy a few books (or, if someone has bought a big-ticket item, even more). You will not only get your purchases, you will get my blessings and a karmic boost!

Favorite rave review, by Teju Cole:
"Evidence that the internet is not as idiotic as it often looks. This site is called Language Hat and it deals with many issues of a linguistic flavor. It's a beacon of attentiveness and crisp thinking, and an excellent substitute for the daily news."

From "commonbeauty"

(Cole's blog circa 2003)

All comments are copyright their original posters. Only messages signed "languagehat" are property of and attributable to languagehat.com. All other messages and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of languagehat.com. Languagehat.com does not endorse any potential defamatory opinions of readers, and readers should post opinions regarding third parties at their own risk. Languagehat.com reserves the right to alter or delete any questionable material posted on this site.